


(don't you know that) the kids aren't alright

by heklin



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alex Boniello!Connor, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Book Club, Character Study, Emails, Mental Illness, Miscommunication, Superpowers, bmc characters make appearances throughout because everything i write is self-indulgent, connor murphy? a bookworm? Yeah, evan is spider-man, spider-man au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heklin/pseuds/heklin
Summary: Connor and Evan meet when they're both desperately in need of a friend. It's too bad Evan's moving across the country as soon as middle school ends, but they promise to keep in touch. (Things don't exactly go as planned.)Connor has finally forced himself to stop dwelling on his mistakes—to stop thinking about the nice kid with the stutter who has a thing for writing long, rambling emails—when Evan moves back at the beginning of their senior year.





	(don't you know that) the kids aren't alright

**_Houston_ **

**_Tuesday, 6:25 AM_ **

Evan wakes up feeling off.

There’s no other way to describe it—he just feels different, in a vague, not-so-good way. Disoriented. He stays in bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to figure it out, until his mom calls from down the hall, “Evan sweetie, I’m heading out! If you don’t get up soon you’re going to be late!”

He turns his head towards the doorway and blinks, then sits up abruptly. The alarm clock on his bedside table reads 6:32, which means he has about ten minutes to get ready and make it to the bus stop on time.

He scrambles out of bed and into the bathroom—and then, upon catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, does a literal double-take.

He doesn’t look like himself. (Or he does, mostly, but there are small differences that probably only he would notice, because he’s used to looking at himself. He’s spent a lot of time standing here, scrutinizing his reflection, picking out flaws and desperately wishing he were someone else.) His shoulders are a little broader than they were before, and his arms are defined in a way that suggests he lifts weights or something—which he absolutely _doesn’t._ Evan’s too anxious to even go to the gym.

But lo and behold, when he raises his right arm and flexes, his bicep _bulges._

Evan continues staring at himself, stepping closer. The two zits he had on his forehead yesterday have mysteriously vanished. His face is no longer round with the remnants of baby fat.

“What the hell,” he says out loud. He’s starting to recognize the familiar sense of dread that precedes a panic attack, and quickly splashes some water on his face. His face that suddenly looks so _different._

He’s just being paranoid or—or something. He needs to calm down. He needs to change and eat breakfast and go to school.

So he determinedly pushes his thoughts to the back of his mind and does just that.

-

**_Queens_ **

**_Tuesday, 6:59 AM_ **

Connor sits at the kitchen table and resists the urge to flick cereal at his sister, who is going on and on about the amazing Alana Beck’s campaign for student body president. Their mom is nodding along enthusiastically and smiling at all the right moments, while Larry reads emails on his phone, occasionally taking sips of coffee from his _World’s Best Dad_ mug (which Connor likes to think was an ironic gift).

Zoe cuts herself off when her phone vibrates loudly against the table—a text from Alana, no doubt. “She’s here,” she announces, quickly standing up and stuffing the rest of her bagel into her mouth. Barely sparing Connor a glance as she bounds out of the kitchen, she calls over her shoulder, “Hurry up, we’re not waiting for you again.”

“It’s gross when you talk with your mouth full,” Connor says as he slings his bag over his shoulder and follows.

She pauses at the front door to turn and open her mouth wide, letting him get a good look at the chewed up bagel in all its glory. He wrinkles his nose and flips her off.

“Hey guys,” Alana greets cheerfully when they get into her car—Zoe in the passenger seat, of course, and Connor slinking reluctantly into the back. He has a brief moment of deja vu, remembering that this is how things usually went when they were younger too. Zoe tended to get the front seat while he was forced to sit in the back, because he misbehaved a lot, and _sitting up front is a privilege, not a right._ (Their dad’s words.)

Alana’s car is small, and as per usual, Connor has to twist himself to the side so that his legs aren’t cramped against the back of Zoe’s seat. Most days, she likes to complain that he’s too fucking bony and that his knees are poking her through the seat, and in response, he slumps down and leans all his weight into his legs, pushing his knees further forward just to spite her. And then she usually makes an annoyed sound and turns to try to shove him away, and he says, “Let me fucking ride shotgun next time,” swatting at her hands, while Alana coughs, turns the radio on, and politely pretends that she isn’t listening.

Today, Connor isn’t in the mood for all that shit. He’s tired, and he knows Zoe is too, because she was at rehearsal until late last night. He’s okay with a temporary truce.

Zoe and Alana fill the morning quiet with friendly conversation, a back and forth that Connor listens in on with mild interest. It’s painfully obvious that Alana has a crush on his sister. If Zoe has picked up on it, she’s doing a good job of keeping her own feelings hidden.

(Which is—well. Connor doesn’t like to think about his sister, much less her love life. She’s just so fucking weird to him.)

It isn’t until they arrive at school that Alana addresses him directly. “Connor, did you read the chapters for AP Lit last night?” she asks, slowly easing into her parking spot.

“Uhhh.” He makes a face. “What were we supposed to read?”

Zoe gets out of the car, and Alana turns to face him. She looks concerned. Possibly even a little bit scandalized. “Fifteen through eighteen of Huck Finn!”

 _Fuck Finn._ He grins wickedly at her, and she stops him before he can open his mouth.

“Please don’t say it,” she says with a smile so forced he thinks her teeth could crack. They both get out of the car and begin the walk towards the entrance, a few steps behind Zoe. “It wasn’t even that funny the first time. Or the second, or the third. Did you read or not? You’re going to be really behind if you didn’t.”

Zoe turns her head slightly, and only her profile is to him, but he still catches the roll of her eyes.

“I got to chapter twenty, actually,” Connor says, raising his voice, before she makes an offhand comment about how he’s _always_ behind or some shit like that. A few people in the hallway turn to look at him. Some of them shoot him glares that say, _what the fuck are you so loud for at seven in the morning?_ while the rest’s expressions say, much more simply, _freak._ He grits his teeth against the sudden wave of anger rising in his chest and adds, “So fuck you both.” And then he heads off in the direction of his first period class.

“Fuck you,” Zoe calls after him.

Connor puts his head down on his desk as soon as he sits down in first period. He fully plans on napping through whatever lecture Mr. Johnson is going to give them today.

Another day of utter shit.

-

**_Houston_ **

**_Tuesday, 9:06 AM_ **

It’s a testament to how distracted Evan is lately that he doesn’t notice the giant fucking bump on the back of his left hand until second period, and even then, only when the girl sitting next to him asks, “Woah, what happened to your hand?”

Evan looks down and pokes at it, equally puzzled, and then hisses when it throbs painfully in response. “Um, it’s—it’s a bug bite,” he replies, because, well, that’s what it looks like. A huge, gross, red, swollen...bug bite.

“Yikes,” the girl says, and goes back to her worksheet.

Evan’s next period is study hall, and he spends the entirety of it on his phone, frantically googling “bug bite identification chart” and clicking through some nausea-inducing photos to try and find a match. Looking closer at the back of his hand, he can see two tiny fang marks in the center of the bump, which apparently means it’s a spider bite. After he figures that out, he looks up “what to do if you get bitten by a spider” and is instructed by a website called pestworld.org to clean the bite with soap and water, and then apply a cold compress and maybe tie a bandage above it, to _help slow/halt the venom’s spread,_ which, holy fuck, practically sends him into a panic attack. He immediately goes to the bathroom and does what he can—washes his hands with that school soap that smells like doctors offices, and then washes them again. Within the two hours between the end of third period and lunch, he’s washed his hands a total of nine times.

 _Yikes is right,_ he thinks miserably as he heads for the snack bar line. He’ll have to show his mom when he gets home, and yeah, it might not even be a big deal, but what if it is? What if it turns out he was bitten by something actually poisonous and he’s making a huge mistake waiting this out instead of sucking it up and just going to the nurse, what if he goes into anaphylactic shock later and ends up _dying?_ His mom would be so mad at him if that happened. Oh god. Oh god.

Evan’s jostled forward in line and snaps out of his thoughts, grabbing a cookie and a bottle of water and paying for it as quickly as he can with trembling hands. The lunch lady raises an eyebrow, glancing at the bite as before counting out his change. “Bee sting?”

“Hahaha, yep,” he says weakly, taking the dollar and three quarters from her and then whirling around to get the hell out of the cafeteria.

Someone bumps into him—or he bumps into them, probably; Evan’s a clumsy guy—and their lunch tray gets knocked out of their hands. It’s like time slows down as it soars through the air, milk sloshing out of the carton, plastic utensils flying. Evan tries to catch everything, which, yeah, is stupid of him, but anyways as he’s flailing his arms and reaching for the tray—still in slow-mo—his wrist sort of twitches. And then there’s something spurting out. Of his fucking hand, or his veins, or—or fucking whatever, where it’s coming from is _not_ the issue right now. The issue is that _something came shooting out of the general direction of his arm_ and it’s all over the tray, which has finally landed on the floor with an echoing clatter. Evan’s ears ring as he stares down at it.

It’s—string?

“Watch it,” the girl he collided with mutters. She bends over to pick up her tray and then makes a face when she sees what it’s covered in. She looks up at him. “Dude, what the hell?”

For a long, horrible moment, Evan can’t do anything but blink at her. He just stands there, unable to think or breathe or apologize, hands shaking.

Then the girl straightens up and shoves past him, leaving her tray there on the floor, which. Wise choice. He barely catches the “asshole” she throws over her shoulder as she goes.

Evan breathes out. He glances around and takes note of his surroundings, trying to ground himself the way his therapist always used to talk to him about. Evan is close to the doors. Evan is holding a saran-wrapped cookie in one hand. Everyone is looking at him. No one is looking at him.

Evan exits the cafeteria.

Evan goes to the fine arts hallway.

Evan sits down on the carpet and eats his cookie.

Then he puts his head between his knees and breathes in, and breathes in, and breathes in, and instead of breathing out he just keeps breathing in pathetic little half-gasps until he’s convinced that he’s _forgotten_ how to fucking exhale.

In the midst of hyperventilating, his fingers find their way to his wrist. He pinches at the skin there. It feels strange.

He gets up and washes his hands again. They’re starting to get cracked and dry from washing them so much, and he knows he’s being paranoid, especially because the bite seems to have shrunk significantly since this morning, but he’s just. _Scared._ So he pumps soap into his palm and scrubs and scrubs even though it’s starting to hurt. When he steps out of the bathroom, his knuckles are red.

What Evan’s search history looks like:

_bug bite_

_bug bite identification chart_

_spider bite_

_string coming out of? veins??_

_spider web coming out of veins?????_

_what type of spider bit peter parker_

_do radioactive spiders exist in real life_

_radioactive spiders_

_did peter parkers skin randomly clear up after he became spiderman_

_how did spidermans webs work_

So basically the conclusion he’s reached by the end of the school day is that either this is some kind of fever dream and he’s hallucinating, or he’s fucking Spider-man.

-

**_Queens_ **

**_Wednesday, 3:28 AM_ **

It’s the middle of the night and Connor is rereading _Bruiser_ , working through the random burst of energy that’s consuming him, driving him to do _something._ His brain feels like it’ll implode if he doesn’t, and he gave up on trying to go to sleep at a normal hour a long time ago, so. This is his life. Flipping through this worn paperback he used to love back in middle school, and letting himself get lost between the pages. It keeps the bad, impulsive thoughts at bay, if only for a little bit.

In the dim yellow light from his desk lamp with The Mountain Goats playing softly in the background, he tricks himself into thinking he’s just a quirky teenager with some questionable habits—not someone who’s unraveling at the seams.

-

**_Houston_ **

**_Thursday, 8:37 PM_**

The thing about Spider-man, Evan thinks, is that he makes sense only in theory.

He’s cool because he’s a lovable nerd who gets to live a double life, fighting crime and bad guys undercover. He’s the underdog. He gets the girl, despite his dorkiness. People like that kind of thing. And Evan gets it—he ate that shit up when he was a kid.

But reality is disappointing. Evan doesn’t have a tragic backstory (just a deadbeat dad and a brain that’s out to get him), or a high school sweetheart, or even a best friend, like Harry Osborn (though that’s probably for the best, Evan thinks, because Harry _did_ end up turning on Peter and becoming the new Green Goblin or something like that). Evan doesn’t know the first thing about what to do in a fight, and he’s _fine_ with not knowing, because he never even asked for any of this. He practiced shooting webs out of his wrist for hours after school yesterday, and even though he’s sort of gotten the hang of it, he’s not planning on using that shit ever again. In reality, Evan is terrified of everything this means for him.

Which is why it’s just his luck that he stumbles into a fight on his way to the grocery store. Like, the kind of situation a guy like Peter is meant to get involved in. (Evan figures it makes sense for them to be on a first name basis, since they’re in the same boat.) The kind of situation where there’s someone in a black mask—which Evan thought was just one of those cliches from movies and TV, but nope, this guy has on an honest-to-god ski mask with eye and mouth holes cut out; very Cartoon Bank Robber of him—pinning a scrawny guy up against the side of a building, yelling something Evan can’t make sense of.

And Evan’s not _trying_ to start a fight, just like he’s not _trying_ to become an actual superhero, but...well. Even if Marvel isn’t really your thing, you how this sort of thing goes.

Evan looks around. It’s dark, and the street is mostly empty, save for himself and the two guys in ahead of him. Evan pulls his hood up over his head and calls, “Hey!”

(His voice cracks. It’s kind of pathetic.)

Ski Mask turns, and then suddenly he has a _gun_ out in his free hand and it’s pointed at Evan. The skinny guy attempts to wriggle free, eyes darting around. “Get the fuck out of here, kid, this isn’t about you.”

Evan is staring down the barrel of a gun and he’s scared absolutely fucking shitless but underneath the spike of fear and panic, there’s _something_ in his gut telling him to trust himself, something urging him to do the right thing.

“Let—let him go,” Evan says.

Ski Mask shifts, just barely. There’s a quiet _click._

Evan’s arm comes up almost like it’s moving of its own volition, and then he flicks his wrist and shoots a web towards the gun. He misses, hitting Ski Mask’s shoulder, but the force of it causes the gun to fall to the ground. Ski Mask swears, stares at Evan, then looks down at himself, dumbfounded. When he reaches for the gun, Evan moves a little closer and tries again, and this time his aim is better—Ski Mask is rewarded with a face full of web.

“Go,” Evan tells the skinny guy, and gets a wide-eyed stare in return. Then the guy is scrambling, not to run away, but to _pull out his cell phone._

 _Are you kidding me,_ Evan thinks, exasperated, before he’s being slammed into the wall.

He wrestles Ski Mask off with surprising ease—right, he has super strength now, how could he forget!—and then, when Ski Mask lunges for him again, Evan punches him in his stupid sock-covered nose.

Evan hopes it hurts Ski Mask as much as it hurts him. There’s a sickening crack and he thinks _oh no oh no that’s bad that’s a very bad sound_ and then he thinks _ow ow ow holy shit ow!!!_ and he has to resist the urge to keel over right there, curl up with his hand cradled close to his chest and just succumb to the pain shooting through his fingers. Instead, he uses his uninjured hand to aim some more webs at Ski Mask, effectively trapping him against the wall.

Over the sound of Ski Mask’s shouts, Evan fumbles in his pockets for his phone, but he can’t seem to stop shaking, so he turns to the skinny guy, who’s still there. Jaw dropped, holding his phone up like he’s definitely been recording everything that just happened.

“Oh my god, seriously?” Evan says shrilly. “Call the fucking cops, he tried to _strangle_ you!”

The guy’s mouth snaps shut. He nods and lowers the phone, fingers moving fast across the screen. Dialing.

Evan turns, takes in the scene. The webs everywhere.

He feels sick. And his hand hurts, like, a lot.

There are sirens in the distance, getting closer. Evan decides that that’s his cue to get the hell away as fast as he can, securing his hood over his head before turning and sprinting down the street. His ears are ringing so loudly he can’t even hear the sound of his own footfalls.

Evan stops running once he reaches his neighborhood. He takes deep breaths and walks slowly, and then he realizes that even after sprinting all the way here, he somehow doesn’t feel like his lungs are caving in. He doesn’t feel like he’s breathing through a straw with a hole in it. Doesn’t need his inhaler.

Apparently spider-humans don’t have to worry about asthma!

Cool!

His mom is pacing in the living room when he gets home. “Where were you?” she demands. “I called, texted, no answer!”

Evan curls his hand into a fist behind his back, wincing and gritting his teeth at the sharp twinge of pain that shoots up his knuckles. “I was—getting bread,” he says. “From the store. Like you wanted me to.”

“Right. It took you two hours to go to the Walmart down the street."

“I went to HEB!” he says, voice a few pitches too high. “The one by Office Depot.”

She laughs a little. “Well, did you forget the bread _there,_ because—”

“Oh.” He squeezes his eyes shut. God, how could he be so stupid? Now she thinks he’s lying because he said he went to get bread, which he honestly _did,_ but then he came home _without bread._ “Yeah, I—must have? Um, left it there. I’m so sorry, I don’t know how I could be so...forgetful.”

His mom stares at him for a long couple of seconds. Then something in her expression shifts, almost as if she’s seeing him for the first time.

“Huh,” she says finally.

Evan fiddles self-consciously with the hem of his shirt. “What?”

She shakes her head, smiling, but there’s still that crease between her brows that means she’s stumped by something. “Nothing, just...” The smile falters. “You’re growing up so fast. It’s like I blinked and you’re suddenly this...young _man._ ”

Evan opens his mouth, then shuts it before he accidentally tells her that that probably has less to do with puberty and more to do with him gaining superpowers overnight. He settles for a shrug and an awkward laugh and says, “I guess.”

His mom sighs, the sad smile returning to her face. And then she moves closer and pulls him in for a hug. “Next time, just let me know if you’re going to be home late, okay? Just text me or something.”

“Okay,” he mumbles into her shoulder. “Sorry again.”

The next day, the video of him shooting webs at Ski Mask goes viral. (Luckily, it’s blurry enough that his face isn’t really visible.) Twitter is full of people insisting that it’s clearly edited and not real, and lmao how stupid are people to believe this crap? News headlines talk about a young vigilante with strange bug powers.

Evan thinks _vigilante_ is a stretch, but he can’t argue with the rest of that sentence.

-

**_Queens_ **

**_Friday, 2:38 PM_ **

After school, Connor meets Michael at his locker. “Sushi time yo,” Michael says with a grin, reaching out for a fist bump. Connor awkwardly knocks their knuckles together, because even though it’s not really his thing, he knows that it’s shitty to leave a guy hanging.

Connor and Michael aren’t _friends,_ not exactly. (Michael would say they’re more of an alliance. Loser solidarity.) But they do smoke together now and then. They met last year in nutrition class. Michael, Connor, and some shy freshman named Emma were grouped together, before Emma switched to a different period. When you’re stuck cooking macaroni and baking cupcakes with the same person every week, they kind of grow on you. Especially if that person likes Gorillaz and food as much as you do, says things like _bangin’_ and _gnarly_ unironically, and makes bad weed jokes all the time.

They get in Michael’s ridiculous-looking car and pick up some grocery store sushi rolls and a couple of sodas before going to Michael’s house to grab the rest of the stuff they need. They ultimately end up at the park—Connor’s favorite place to get high.

Michael rolls two joints. They sit under the shade of a bunch of trees, slightly secluded from the rest of the park, with the boxes of sushi on the grass between them, not talking much. Michael hums under his breath as he hands Connor his joint. Sometimes Connor wishes he could be as carefree as Michael. Other times, like when Michael’s sighing and stressing and pining over his best friend, he’s glad that he _isn’t_ Michael.

But then again, Connor would never be able relate to that anyways because he doesn’t even _have_ a best friend of his own, let alone someone to crush on.

They smoke. They eat the mediocre grocery store sushi. Michael keeps humming quietly.

“Our lives are so goddamn boring,” Connor mutters after a while, staring up at the canopy of leaves above him.

“Speak for yourself, dude,” says Michael. “A few months ago Jeremy swallowed a fucking supercomputer that took over his brain, and then I had to save him and pretty much the entire human race by force-feeding his theatre buddies some expired soda.”

Connor snorts with laughter. “You’re so fucking high, oh my god.”

Around five, Michael drives him home. They share a half-assed high five instead of a fist bump, and then Connor drags himself inside and upstairs before his parents can try to talk to him.

He dicks around for a while on his laptop, listening to a podcast and scrolling through Goodreads at the same time. He likes to pretend he can multitask, but really all that comes of this is tuning out of the podcast to focus on reading a book review, and then tuning back in five minutes later and getting confused since he wasn’t paying attention, so he has to rewind the podcast but then he ends up getting distracted again. (Not that it’s a big deal though, because in the grand scheme of things Connor’s only doing this shit to avoid dealing with his emotions. So he’s winning no matter what distraction he ends up paying more attention to.)

By the time there’s a tentative knock on his door, Connor has updated three of his shelves ( _books-i-fcking-hated, really-want-to-read,_ and _middle-school_ ) and is on the second episode of the podcast, which he is determined to not give up on.

“What,” he calls.

The door opens, and Zoe’s standing there. Connor quickly closes the Goodreads tab because she does _not_ need to know that he has a Goodreads account.

“What are you listening to?” she asks, head tilted slightly.

“Uh.” Connor glances down at the screen. “ _The Orbiting Human Circus_?”

“Okay, well, it’s really weird, and we can hear it from the game room,” she says. “So could you turn it down?”

He rolls his eyes, but lowers the volume and hits pause. “‘We’?” he says, because he’s pretty sure their parents left earlier for some family friend’s dinner party.

“‘Lana’s spending the night.”

Connor doesn’t know how to respond to that. Alana and his sister have been hanging out a lot lately, but he’s pretty sure she’s never slept over. Part of him wonders if they’re a thing now.

Zoe narrows her eyes at him. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I...literally didn’t say a word.”

“You have a judgy look on your face, and I’m over it.”

“Then get out,” he says.

She doesn’t need to be told twice, but she does sort of slam his door shut, which Connor does not fucking appreciate.

He shuts his laptop and curls up on his side. Now that there isn’t a narrator’s voice filling up the silence in his room, he can hear Zoe and Alana’s muffled laughter coming from down the hall. For a brief moment, he goes tense, convinced that they’re laughing at _him,_ making fun of him, talking about him, but then he can make out the faint sound of Zoe’s guitar, and she’s singing something that she clearly doesn’t know the words to, giggling between lyrics. Connor shoves a pillow over his head to drown her out, feeling annoyed and way too sensitive, as usual. Of course they aren’t talking about him. Why would they be?

He’s probably just jealous. Which is kind of a common occurrence when you have a sister who’s so naturally good at everything, but this time it’s because she’s having fun with a friend while he’s lying in bed, wallowing in self-pity like the useless piece of shit he is.

It’s all so stupid.

Besides, Connor’s lack of friends is his own damn fault.

-

**_Houston_ **

**_Saturday, 6:18 PM_ **

The bite disappears, not even leaving so much as a scab behind. And Evan’s other hand, which he had been ninety percent sure he’d broken, was completely healed by Friday morning. He remembers how much it had hurt, but when he wiggles his fingers now, it feels totally fine.

He decides it’s time to do some research, because fighting crime is starting to feel a little inevitable at this point. He Googles how to throw a punch properly. He spends hours in a Youtube hole watching videos with titles like _How to Fight: Tips for your 1st Fight_ and _10 basic fighting techniques and methods_ and _Top 3 Street Fight Mistakes!_ and he pretends that he isn’t scaring the shit out of himself even more. He digs out his old comic books and rereads them all.

His mom finds him there in the garage when she gets home, sitting hunched over next to the boxes of comics with _The Amazing Spider-man #402_ in his lap. He’s so deep into it that he doesn’t notice she’s there until her greying Keds appear directly in front of him, and her voice is above him saying, “Evan?” as if she’s tried and failed to get his attention a few times already.

Evan looks up at her and blinks rapidly, and then he shuts the comic and stuffs it back into the box before scrambling to his feet. “What? Sorry, hi, I—thought you’d be home later.”

She peers into the box curiously and laughs. “The way you put that away so fast, if I didn’t know any better I’d think it was porn.”

Evan feels his cheeks immediately go hot and instead of telling her  _I'm pretty sure no one gets their porn from magazines anymore,_  stammers, “Oh my god, Mom, no, I was just—"

“Reading comic books,” she says, smiling, and then teases, “On a Saturday night.”

He shrugs, but he can’t help the smile that creeps across his own face. “Yeah, um. I was just feeling nostalgic I guess?”

“My nerdy little boy.” His mom takes a can of off-brand cola out of the fridge before heading to the door. “I’m gonna turn in early, my shift starts at five tomorrow. There’s leftovers in the kitchen if you’re hungry?”

“I already ate,” he tells her.

“Okay. Good night, honey.”

“Night.” He gives her a little salute because that usually makes her laugh—the real, eye-crinkling kind—and then when she’s gone, he reaches into the box again.

He stays up late reading, until around one in the morning when the garage starts to feel a little creepy and he calls it a night, putting everything away and going to his room. An hour later, when he still hasn’t managed to fall asleep, he rolls over in bed, unplugs his phone from where it’s sitting on his bedside table, and starts to read other issues of _Spider-man_ online.

The whole situation feels surreal. He’s basically accepted it already, because Evan is the type of person who usually just lets things happen to him—he’s like a secondary character in his own life—but it hasn’t really begun to _truly_ sink in yet, because, well. None of it makes _sense._ How could _Evan_ be a potential superhero? He can’t even order pizza for himself over the phone. He can’t even give presentations in class without pretty much breaking into hives. He goes red when teachers call on him. Up until a few days ago, he couldn’t breathe properly without the help of his inhaler almost every time he went outside. He trips over his own feet. He’s a nobody.

 _It should have been someone else,_ he thinks as he sets his phone down. He has a headache now from putting so much strain on his eyes, so he closes them tight and wills sleep to come to him.

-

**_Queens_ **

**_Sunday, 7:15 PM_ **

Connor is standing at the kitchen island, assembling a quesadilla for himself, when his mom gets home. She’s dressed in yoga pants and a shirt that says “MOM LIFE” and then underneath that, in a smaller font, “the hustle is real.” Connor resists the urge to sigh upon seeing it. He’s willing to bet that Zoe bought it for her, since Zoe is usually the type of person who thinks corny graphic tees are funny.

(Zoe’s the one who designs the shirts for clubs and organizations at school, which is the reason most of them have terrible puns on the back. Connor can recall seeing some kid wearing a Science Honor Society shirt that said “Oxidants happen!” on it, which, like, made no sense to put there aside from the fact that it was vaguely science-related. Whenever he sees one of those dumbass T-shirts he literally has to deep breathe through his nose until he isn’t worked up about it anymore.)

“Oh, I was going to make lasagna for dinner,” his mom says by way of greeting, frowning as she sets down an armful of Whole Foods bags.

“No thanks,” he murmurs. He folds the tortilla neatly in half before placing it in the pan, careful not to let any cheese fall out.

She sighs. “Could you help put this stuff away while I go change?”

Connor turns the stove on low and stoops down to pull a box of granola bars out of one of the bags. His mom must be surprised that he agreed without any fuss or sarcastic comments, because she lingers there for a moment, just looking at him. Then she heads down the hallway.

Connor gets whatever confusion she’s probably experiencing. Normally he’s an awful son and avoids most house chores. Lately though, it’s like the fight has been drained out of him, and he can’t muster up the energy to argue over pointless shit.

He puts most of the groceries away except for the things he isn’t sure where to put, and by then his quesadilla is ready to be flipped. After he does that, he cuts an avocado in half and begins the process of scooping it out into a bowl and mashing it up with a fork.

It’s all ridiculously simple, but he likes doing it.

His mom comes downstairs with her hair in a ponytail, looking refreshed. “How was your day?” she asks as she organizes the rest of the groceries.

Connor sort of shrugs. His quesadilla is now plated, and he leans against the counter and tears a piece of it off with his fingers, even though it’s too hot to eat. “Fine. Boring.” Which is the truth. Nothing _terrible_ happened, but also, nothing even remotely eventful happened. So.

“Do anything fun?”

“I just said it was boring,” he says tiredly. If she pushes a little more, maybe he’ll tell her that he slept from ten last night till three in the afternoon today, and that he stayed in bed until five because he just couldn’t deal with the thought of trying to face the world outside his room, and that when he _did_ finally get up he only made it as far as the game room couch, where he sat staring blankly at the rug until his stomach growled and he dragged himself downstairs to make a quesadilla. (Because a quesadilla is simple and something he can manage. The thought of making a quesadilla doesn’t send him spiraling, doesn’t make him panic.)

If she pushes a little more, he’ll tell her, since he’s exhausted enough to spill his guts. But she doesn’t push, and instead wrinkles her nose and asks, “Are you sure you don’t want some lime on that?”

She’s talking about the mashed avocado.

“I like it like this,” he says defensively. He scoops up some more of it, daring her to challenge him. Time after time, he’s had to explain to her that he doesn’t want to make fucking guacamole, and yet she always keeps saying that he should add lime or salt or _at least_ some cilantro.

“Okay, okay,” she surrenders, ducking into the pantry to get lasagna noodles or whatever.

Connor finishes his quesadilla before going up to his room and crawling back into bed.

-

**_Houston_ **

**_Monday, 4:03 PM_ **

After school, Evan walks to his neighborhood park with a goal in mind. Ever since noticing that his fingertips stick to things sometimes—which is apparently because of a bunch of tiny spider-like hairs occasionally sprouting from his fingertips, and out of this whole situation, _that_ is the thing that freaks him out the fucking most because it’s so unsettling and _so fucking weird oh my god_ —he’s wanted to test out if he can climb things the way Peter Parker could.

There’s no one around, so he picks a tall-ish oak tree and gets to work. It’s a lot easier than he thought it would be, which is probably more due to the fact that he’s so comfortable among nature, and less due to, like, him starting to get an actual grasp on these powers.

Evan’s just glad that his worst fear of falling and breaking his neck doesn’t come true.

He spends maybe an hour climbing that same tree over and over, scaling it all the way to the top and then shuffling down with ease and, dare he say it, _agility?_ —before repeating the process. On his way home, he realizes that his shirt is sticking to him with sweat. Maybe he should start working out now. Not because he’s out of shape (he may have been before, but now he’s slimmed down and sort of muscle-y in that cool, athletic way he’s always admired), but because he should probably get used to like. Well. Fighting crime is going to be a lot of work, literally, so some more exercise can’t hurt.

As always, there are leftovers in the fridge, and he picks a container of veggie lo mein to eat in front of the TV. He almost makes it to the end of _Spider-man (2002)_ before he realizes that his chest is tightening up and he’s been biting down so hard on his cheek that he can taste blood.

Evan turns off the movie.

He gets a glass of water from the kitchen. He goes to his room.

_With great power comes great responsibility._

The words repeat themselves in his head, knocking against each other and echoing obnoxiously. This is maybe not very good. This is kind of bad. This is scary—it’s _been_ scary, but now it’s _even more fucking terrifying_ because he feels like he’s losing himself in all this Spider-man crap.

Evan used to be in therapy, up until the beginning of this school year, when his mom switched jobs and their insurance changed, and Evan couldn’t continue sessions because Dr. Sherman’s office didn’t take whatever new insurance company they ended up with. Evan’s mom had promised to find him a new therapist ASAP, but Evan had insisted it was okay and that he didn’t really need it anyway because he was doing Fine now! Seriously!

Now he really wishes he hadn’t said that. He wonders if he could even tell a therapist about his spider powers. Probably, right? Because doctor-patient confidentiality only doesn’t apply when the patient is planning on hurting themselves or someone else. Would fighting crime count as hurting other people? He’d only be beating up the _bad guys,_ but like. Would a therapist still have to report that? Where does the line get drawn?

Evan sighs heavily and sinks into his desk chair. He’s overthinking, and he knows he should stop, but he can’t like, control his brain! He lets a few tears escape because honestly, he’s been handling this _pretty fucking well,_ all things considered, and it’s okay if he breaks down a little bit. He deserves a good cry.

After a few minutes, he sits back and just breathes. Shallow breaths, because when he inhales deeply, his chest hurts.

Without thinking, he picks up a pen from on top of the clutter on his desk and twirls it between his fingers. It’s one of those huge, touristy pens that’s basically just an oblong snowglobe with a pen tip attached to the end. Inside, there’s a cityscape that says _QUEENS,_ and when he shakes it, glitter rains down on the tiny painted skyscrapers.

Evan’s mom got it for him before they moved to Houston. Maybe because she felt guilty and wanted to make him feel better in some small way.

Or maybe she just thought it was cute, and he’s reading too much into it.

Evan shoves the pen into his desk drawer when tears prick at his eyes again. Not the right time to start thinking about all that could have been.

-

**_Queens_ **

**_Wednesday, 11:23 AM_ **

Connor feels like he’s wading through water these days.

It’s like he’s on autopilot. He’ll wake up, go to school, sit/sleep through his classes, go home. Sleep until dinner, then sleep some more. Repeat. Sometimes he reads or watches TV. Occasionally Michael wants to hang out, and Connor has a decent time with him, but lately he just. Ignores his texts. He can’t bring himself to _do_ anything more than the bare minimum. He wants to get high again (by himself, because he doesn’t want anyone to see him unless they absolutely have to—like, at school), but he hasn’t kept weed in the house since Fucking Larry raided his room back in December and took his car keys away. Connor’s trying to be on his best behavior—or give the illusion of good behavior, at least in regards to drugs—so he can have his car back. Getting rides with Alana isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it’s embarrassing. Plus, he knows Zoe hates him a little more for it. She probably thinks he’s so fucking lame, having to tag along and intrude on...whatever her thing with Alana is.

Connor is so fucking _tired_ of it all _._

He’ll keep going, though. He will.

He wishes he had something that would make the keep-going easier.

Maybe that something is the hope that one day he won’t feel like this anymore. Yeah. Connor is gonna keep going, and he might want to die right now but he’ll keep fucking living anyways, because his future might be a tiny bit fucking better.

It feels pathetic having to think this way, having to cling onto that, but it’s kind of all he has.

-

**_Houston_ **

**_Wednesday, 5:22 PM_ **

Evan sells all of his comics.

He wishes he could say that he donated them or something, like a Good Person, but there were so _many,_ and a lot of them were worth a decent amount of money, and. They always need money in the Hansen household. So he sells them, even the Wolverine ones and the Captain America ones and all the other non-Spider-man ones that he loved so much growing up.

He needs to keep telling himself, _reminding_ himself that he’s not Spider-man, that he’s not Peter Parker, that he’s Evan Hansen, plain and simple, and he’ll always be Evan Hansen. Just with...the same abilities that Spider-man has.

He’s starting to hate the word _Spider-man._

The funniest thing about all this is that more than anything, he wants to tell _Connor._ Which he knows is so stupid, because they don’t even talk anymore, they haven’t talked to each other for almost three years, but it doesn’t change the fact that he _wants_ to. Badly.

He doesn’t have anyone else. He would tell Jared, but Jared can’t keep a secret to save his life. And also, Jared lives hundreds of miles away and this isn’t the kind of thing you tell a person over text. Or Facetime. He tries to imagine Jared’s initial reaction— _“Yeah fucking right Evan, and I’m the goddamn Hulk. Next.”_

Evan hasn’t made any friends here in this city that still doesn’t feel like home, even after three years.

He’s literally a superhero with no one to tell.

**Author's Note:**

> \- i'm taking a whole lot of creative liberty with the spider-man thing so uhhh. don't ask me how evan came into contact with a radioactive spider in the first place or why the hell his acne clears up after getting bitten or why marvel exists in this because.. idk either  
> \- connor in this fic is being written with alex boniello's connor in mind, but i mean no one's stopping you from picturing him as mike faist or idk, another cast member of your choice. just letting ppl know if you think i'm describing connor differently than i usually do, it's because i am!  
> \- for evan you can picture whoever you want too i guess but if you're wondering, he's being written with ben platt in mind (very vaguely though)  
> \- timeline: they're in middle school during the same years i was, so when they're in eighth grade (basically all of chapter two and three) it's 2013-2014. they're juniors in 2016-17 and seniors from 2017 to 2018. 2000s babeys!!!  
> \- endgame is Not treebros! connor and evan aren't going to date. this fic is about their friendship and their lives from eighth grade to the end of high school, skipping around a bit. there will be another part in the series from jared's point of view that'll take place during senior year (basically it'll pick up where the last chapter of this fic ends) and that is where the actual Romance comes in. if you choose to stick around till then, then hey, thanks! it'll be worth it :^)  
> \- all books mentioned are books that i read in middle school. same goes for all the bands/songs mentioned! my actual opinions on them might be a little different from evan's and connor's though lol  
> \- title from the kids aren't alright by fob  
> \- ALRIGHT that's all folks sorry for the long ass author's note! see u again soon! in the meantime please leave kudos and comment (i've been working on this for a really long time so thoughts, feedback and favorite parts are very much appreciated), n follow me on tumblr @jaredklein


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